Organizing Tips for Your Home

We spoke with several professional organizers to get their home organization tips, and when we asked them about the advantages of organizing, they all said the same thing: getting your house in order leads to reduced stress, heightened mental clarity and increased energy. Need we say more?

Start by setting aside some time on your calendar. Making a concrete plan will help you commit to the project and give you time to eliminate distractions, like finding a babysitter for the kids or continuing to push organizing aside when something more fun comes up.

Separate your home into chunks to avoid getting in over your head. Organize one room at a time, or even one section at a time if you’re dealing with a large or particularly unorganized section of the house. These small steps will make the end goal less daunting.

When you can see every item you’ve shoved in a closet or drawer, you’ll get a better sense of just how much stuff you have and whether it’s really necessary to keep it all. With a glance, you can first decide if everything you see is even in the right part of the house.

If you’re organizing an area of the home that acts as storage, such as the garage, attic or basement, consider making an inventory list of everything in the room. This will help you keep track of what you own and how many of each item you have to organize and declutter effectively.

Categorizing your belongings will help you keep track of everything. If you store all your cleaning supplies in the same place, you can quickly and easily find what you need when there’s a spill to clean up. This will also allow you to see what’s not being used. As you group items together, create a pile for anything you haven’t used in a while and duplicates. Assuming they are in good condition, decide if you want to donate or sell these items. Also, create a group for outdated, broken and damaged items and recycle or toss these things. Make sure to get anything you don’t use out of the house ASAP.

Now, give your grouped items a designated place so you’ll know exactly where to put them away after each use, making cleanup a breeze. This makes it easier to keep your home organized moving forward.

Don’t be afraid to get creative when you’re putting things away. Try the following storage tips when organizing your home:

Vertical Space

This can be a useful space-saving tactic and as simple as hanging hooks on the mudroom wall for coats in the kitchen to store pots, pans and cooking utensils. Use shelves anywhere in the home for some extra space or try hanging organizers on the back of doors to keep track of craft supplies, jewelry, shoes, etc.

Plastic Bins

Containers you can close and stack are an easy way to keep track of items that don’t get used often, like holiday decorations and seasonal clothing. Bins are easy to label to keep like items grouped together and organized. Use anything as simple as painter’s tape or sticky notes and a permanent marker, or get fancy with a label maker.

Baskets

If you’re looking for a decorative but effective way to keep a frequently-used space in order, baskets keep toys, blankets and other items from taking up space on the floor or in living areas.

Cubbies

Use cubbies in your closet, the mudroom or wherever your children do their homework to keep track of shoes, sporting equipment and school supplies.

Pegboards

These can be used in a variety of ways, from hanging tools at your workbench in the garage to holding baskets to organize supplies in your home office.

Drawer Dividers

An obvious and effective solution to keeping clutter at bay in the kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and anywhere else you have an unruly drawer. Drawer dividers are a great way to save space and organize like items.